The Slightest Change
by Cornwall Writes
Summary: Tom Riddle appears in Hermione Granger's life and changes it forever.


It started simply enough.

She'd never been one for boys. Or maybe she'd never been the one boys wanted. She was used to being their friend, their tutor, the person they consulted on what to do with their girlfriends. She was never the object of their affections.

He appeared one day in front of her. Literally. He apparated out of nowhere, landing in the middle of Flourish and Blotts. People screamed, but she fainted as her head started swimming. He caught her, and she woke up in his arms.

That first touch was electric. There was no other word for it. It felt like someone had put a gentle current through her system. She felt hyper, like she could conquer the world. She wanted to conquer him.

She had never been one for boys, but he was a man. And she wanted him.

Everything was complicated.

He was used to girls fawning over him. He had just never liked any of them. They were good friends, or mild amusements, but he never felt anything like love for them. He wanted something, someone, else.

He apparated to Flourish and Blotts one day and it all went wrong. He could hear screaming but a girl had fainted in front of him and his only thought was to catch her. When he caught sight of her brown eyes, he nearly fainted himself.

Her fingers on his cheek felt like they were burning him. It was magical. His blood was on fire and he loved it. His plans to conquer the world went out of his head entirely. She was all he wanted.

Girls had always fawned over him, but this woman didn't. Merlin, he loved her.

She knew she shouldn't have fallen for him. She knew something was wrong. Memories of a different time flooded her brain. She woke up certain she would have scars covering her skin, but there was nothing except a small scar she got when she was six and fell off her bike. She remembered a war that hadn't happened, where she fought the man beside her until her fingernails were jagged and blood matted her hair. Still she fought on.

Now she woke up beside him, the scratches down her back intentional and mutual. She curled into his side and felt his heart beat in time with hers, the memories fading. Maybe it was a book she'd read…

He knew she had reservations. He knew something major had been changed by him coming here. He couldn't work out how he'd jumped so far into the future. No one could. Something had happened, but part of him didn't care. He knew he was home now, with his witch by his side.

He would still take over the world. He would get rid of the corrupt Ministry. He would just have to find a different banner for people to rally under. Blood purity becomes less important when you're in love with a Muggleborn.

He felt her curl into his side and ran his hand down her back, smiling slightly at the raised marks. The way she purred when his nails dug in only made him do it harder until she gasped and writhed beneath him, digging her own in. He loved that she accepted his slight kink, accepted it because she was the same. They were the same in so many ways…

When he told her of his plan to take over the Ministry, she thought.

She thought for a week before mentioning it again. There were more problems than he thought, she said. He hadn't been there in too long. She gave him a list of people who had to go, laws that should be abolished, companies that needed to be destroyed. There was corruption at the roots of it, and she suggested he start there.

Cut off the head, and two grow in its place. But burn the body, and the heads become easier to destroy.

He spent a year learning everything he could about his new society. Learning which families were powerful, which had slipped, which had married to form a new allegiance. Learnt which laws were despised, which people thought should be stricter, and what could be passed without anyone noticing. He analysed everything, using the brain of his beautiful Muggleborn to absorb things he couldn't pick up on. She caught mini social cues he couldn't grasp, taught him how to move in circles he didn't know existed.

He couldn't fathom how he would have done it without her. She was his everything, and he would have failed without her brilliance. She challenged him when he wanted to just go charging in, telling him how that wouldn't work as though she had already experienced it. He asked once why she was agreeing to go along with his plan, and she frowned before answering. Because someone needs to do something, she said.

Beautifully put. He would do something. Together they would do everything.

She was by his side the day he took over. She had organised everything, found the workers who would help them, replaced those who wouldn't. It was a bloodless coup, orchestrated by the man who appeared out of nowhere and his new bride. They had overthrown the Ministry of Magic with no fuss.

The people barely noticed.

He made sure they noticed soon. But they only noticed the good things. New laws changed how people were tried, so those who committed minor crimes didn't go to Azkaban. People celebrated him coming into office, bragged about being in the shop when he first appeared. They didn't notice his opponents disappearing because who would oppose such a good leader?

It took years before anyone noticed they hadn't aged much. No one could work out how old they were anymore. They liked it that way. They wanted control, and they had it.

It may have started differently, but they ended it together.

A/N: Because the Gin'n'Tonic I'm trying to write isn't working so some mild Tomione to help me want to write more Tom Riddle.


End file.
